Why changing the past is not possible!

[Naféasonto]

These are my theories, but I believe in my 2nd theory, more then my first:


I have two theories on why changing the past is not possible:
1. Time is like a river, it has a gentle flow.
2. Even if you go back in time to change the past, the event that you went to change wouldn’t have happened because of you. Therefore not causing you to go back in time to change that event, causing a paradox. So in reality, you would not even go back in the past in the first place, to change that event!

Let me give an example of theory 1.

Take a river, for instance a straight river. You go up to that river to change its flow, so what would you have to do? You would have to make another path from the rivers original flow, causing the water to go in another direction. What have you created? You have now created two different flows of water! Even though you have changed one thing at a certain point in that river, the other river will still keep going! Take this in account for time. If you were to go back in time and at a certain point in our time line alter an event, that would create another time line, but the original time line would still be going. In other words, this fits in with the theory of alternate universes, or different time lines!!! BUT! What would happen if you changed another event in the same time line, or in an alternate time line, and you changed too many timelines, or too many events, or changed an event to fix another even in the same time line! What would happen to the river? It would overflow, it would start to run out of room. Causing a temporal paradox, or all time lines to co-exists with each other, in other words causing holes in the fabric of the space time continuum! Or passageways to get to the other alternate time lines!

Now to explain theory 2!

Let me explain theory two for people who do not get me. Take the Kennedy assassination. Say you invent a time machine to prevent this event from ever happening! Now, you go back in time to prevent it, you do, but your future self which now has already happened and thought of going back in time for the purpose of preventing the Kennedy assassination, won’t think of this idea! But since you prevented the assassination from ever happening, you in the future would of never thought to go back in time in to the past anyway to prevent this from happening, therefore you would of not even gone back in to the past! Therefore causing what you did, not to even occur!

 

[Dynaco]

I don't know if it is all the booze I drank watching the Twins lose a little while ago or what, but that just gave me a big fucking headache. Bastard.

 

[Frosty]

Greasy slicked down body, groovy leather trim
I like the way you hold the road, mama, it ain't no sin

Talkin' 'bout love

Trouble-free transmission, helps your oil's flow
Mama, let me pump your gas, mama, let me do it all

Talkin' 'bout love

Dig that heavy metal underneath your hood
Baby, I could work all night, believe I've got the perfect tools

Talkin' 'bout love

A model built for comfort, really built with style
Specialist tradition, mama, let me feast my eyes

Talkin' 'bout love

Factory air-conditioned, heat begins to rise
Guaranteed to run for hours, mama it's a perfect size

Talkin' 'bout love

Groovin' on the freeway, gauge is on the red
Gun down on my gasoline, I believe I'm gonna crack a head.

Talkin' 'bout love
I can't stop talkin' about...

Come to me for service every hundred miles
Baby, let me check your points, fix your overdrive

Talkin' 'bout love

Fully automatic, comes in any size
Makes me wonder what I did, before we synchronized

Talkin' 'bout love

Feather-light suspension, coils just couldn't hold
I'm so glad I took a look inside your showroom doors

Talkin' 'bout love

Oh, I can't stop talkin' about love.

 

[Dynaco]

I like that line about "Baby, let me check your points." Most people don't even know what the hell points in the distributor are. I'm used to tinkering with points and condensor from my Mini but my friend just got this 1970 Buick Electra with a 455ci in it with points. He had no idea what the hell they were or how to put them in or adjust them. Maybe if his gap wasn't set to 60 thousandsth then his engine might run a wee bit better. Methinks anyway

 

[Saturnyne]

feh... who says time even exists? I personally think it's nothing more than a man-made invention, a way to measure the time when the sun comes up to when the sun goes down.

 

[cff]

Originally posted by Naféasonto
These are my theories, but I believe in my 2nd theory, more then my first:
I have two theories on why changing the past is not possible:
1. Time is like a river, it has a gentle flow.
2. Even if you go back in time to change the past, the event that you went to change wouldn?t have happened because of you. Therefore not causing you to go back in time to change that event, causing a paradox. So in reality, you would not even go back in the past in the first place, to change that event!

Ad 1) That is pretty much the standard thinking of today.
Ad 2) You forget a tiny bit here. Granted if you saved Kennedy in the past there wouldn't be the need for saving him in the present. However: you might still know that he was tried to be assassinated back then and either want to watch this historic moment or there is a hint it was an alien and you think you had been that one, or you are just a wacko that thinks he was the one. In all 3 cases you might be present to rescue him again even if he isn't dead in your timeline.

My theory is that the past cannot be changed, simply as that. Everything that can be changed was already changed so to say. So maybe there are timetravellers that travel back into the past. But we already saw the effects that they did. My theory is that time is such stable that we will only attempt that time travels in the future (to the past) that we actually already have observed the effects in the past.
As such in my view on the universe there might be parallel worlds and we might even be able to visit them, but they certainly won't be spawned from our world.
Also a result from my theory would be that you could actually 100% forsee the future iff you knew the present to 100% and had enough calculation power present. Said future could not be altered as well.

 

[Quarto]

Re: Re: Why changing the past is not possible!

Originally posted by cff
Also a result from my theory would be that you could actually 100% forsee the future iff you knew the present to 100% and had enough calculation power present. Said future could not be altered as well.

Hmm... I don't think I agree there. Even if you know 100% of the present, there is still a random element (for example, in human decision-making - our decisions are not always rational). You might be able to predict the probabilities of the different possibilities, but ultimately you could never be certain which is finally going to happen.

 

[Mav23]

Anything's possible. It may not make sense and is not probable, but it is still possible.

And, I agree with the whole time is just our conception of change thing. Or our measurement of change, rather.

 

[TC]

Originally posted by Mav23
Anything's possible. It may not make sense and is not probable, but it is still possible.

You realize that the above statement isn't logically sound. It's self contradicting. It says that it's impossible for something to be impossible.

 

[Frosty]

Touché...

 

[Zarathustra]

In response to the "not probable but possible" comment being not logically sound, that doesn't mean he's not right. Take the last 100 years of physics, a great deal of which doens't seem very logically sound but it is experimentally verifiable. How logical does it sound that your mass increases with your velocity or that your length will contract, etc...or that a particle could or could not be a certain type, b/c it could change at any time...or that cause doesn't necessarily happen before effect?

 

[TC]

But all your examples are perfectly logical, once you lay the groundwork... However, something self-contradicting can't be true. Follow me here:

Nothing is impossible.
Therefore, impossibility is impossible.

Since, due to the conditions of the initial statement, this cannot be true, and due to the condition of the initial statement this also must be true, the original statement is at fault.

Don't make me get into the fact that if everything is possible, impossibiliity must be possible as well.

 

[Mav23]

Here's an example of what I was trying to say:

I jump off a high cliff. If I continue to fall, I will die. However, before I hit the ground (or have a heart attack from the fall) I sprout wings, instantly know how to use them, use them well, and glide to safety.

It makes no sense, has no logic, but it COULD happen.

There, that shouldn't be contradicting, let me know if I'm wrong.

 

[TC]

Originally posted by Mav23
Here's an example of what I was trying to say:

I jump off a high cliff. If I continue to fall, I will die. However, before I hit the ground (or have a heart attack from the fall) I sprout wings, instantly know how to use them, use them well, and glide to safety.

It makes no sense, has no logic, but it COULD happen.

There, that shouldn't be contradicting, let me know if I'm wrong.

That's perfectly logical... I think... It's just not reasonable... and it has nothing to do with proving that nothing's impossible.

 

[Mav23]

Okay... what's a better way I could say what I mean then?

 

[TC]

How should I know? Say what you mean, then I'll tell you... (Take that brain!)

 

[Mav23]

Ah, another confusing statement in this thread, they just keep comin' and comin'!

BTW, just so you know T.C., I was actually asking if you could suggest a way to say what I meant for future reference and was not just being whiny or anything. I really don't know how to explain it. Didn't want you to get the wrong idea. So if anyone else could help it would be appreciated

 

[TheFraix]

How about dealing with the Past?

I ALWAYS BELIEVE THAT THE MAIN PROBLEMS IS NOT CHANGING THE PAST (OR PREVENTING IT FROM EVER OCCURING), BUT BY DEALING WITH IT... AND MOVE ON WITH LIFE.

I'M not saying that we should forget it. I say we should learn to accept it as part of WHO we are, and decided WHAT we'll do next.

People who dwells in the past too long tends to live unhappy lives. For instance, take the Time Traveller from THE TIME MACHINE movie. He couldn't accept his girlfriend's death that he decided to move forward in his life.

"For the past is the past, don't regret it... time to realize... Never took this road before, destination unknown. Ohohoh destination unknown." lyrics taken from the TOP GUN soundtrack

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Clearly, time travel is possible... as Privateer 2 says so.

 

[Concordia]

Originally posted by Naféasonto
These are my theories, but I believe in my 2nd theory, more then my first:


I have two theories on why changing the past is not possible:
1. Time is like a river, it has a gentle flow.
2. Even if you go back in time to change the past, the event that you went to change wouldn’t have happened because of you. Therefore not causing you to go back in time to change that event, causing a paradox. So in reality, you would not even go back in the past in the first place, to change that event!

I thought about that before. Really difficult to grasp, but my guess is that if you did it, you'd jump into the time machine, and nothing happens. In reality you did go back in time and alter events, but the alteration of events would have meant that you would have never wanted to have gone back therefore you would not have built the time machine, but if you never built the time machine you'd never have gone back therefore the universe resets itself. The question is, does the time machine go away? Or does it stay. If it stays, it's like you hit the time-warp button and you see a flash and you're still standing there and nothing happened. Wierd huh?

Let me give an example of theory 1.

Take a river, for instance a straight river. You go up to that river to change its flow, so what would you have to do? You would have to make another path from the rivers original flow, causing the water to go in another direction. What have you created? You have now created two different flows of water! Even though you have changed one thing at a certain point in that river, the other river will still keep going! Take this in account for time. If you were to go back in time and at a certain point in our time line alter an event, that would create another time line, but the original time line would still be going. In other words, this fits in with the theory of alternate universes, or different time lines!!! BUT! What would happen if you changed another event in the same time line, or in an alternate time line, and you changed too many timelines, or too many events, or changed an event to fix another even in the same time line! What would happen to the river? It would overflow, it would start to run out of room. Causing a temporal paradox, or all time lines to co-exists with each other, in other words causing holes in the fabric of the space time continuum! Or passageways to get to the other alternate time lines!

I have heard theories that there are infinite universes and infinite variations of each one. Imagine you have a monkey tapping on a keyboard with an infinite amount of time to do so. They would not only print every novel ever made, and ever will be made; but they would make every variation of every novel ever made and will make, and in every language that exists and will exists, and will not only do this, but will also type it in infinite forms of gibberish. Well not really, assuming you have an american-keyboard you can't do it in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, or Cyrillic, but you could do it in every language that has our alphabet. Assuming you count ascii characters, maybe they could. It's called the infinite-monkey theory.

Since you have infinite universes, it wouldn't over flow at all.

Theory 3 I'm adding, when you alter the timeline, the universe splits off like you said into the new one and the old one, but the old one ceases to exist, leaving only the new one. Or maybe the old one doesn't cease, but becomes a "dead" dimension or something like that. Not really certain here...

Now to explain theory 2!

Let me explain theory two for people who do not get me. Take the Kennedy assassination. Say you invent a time machine to prevent this event from ever happening! Now, you go back in time to prevent it, you do, but your future self which now has already happened and thought of going back in time for the purpose of preventing the Kennedy assassination, won’t think of this idea! But since you prevented the assassination from ever happening, you in the future would of never thought to go back in time in to the past anyway to prevent this from happening, therefore you would of not even gone back in to the past! Therefore causing what you did, not to even occur!

I understand this principle.

-Concordia